For the Salvation of Souls:
A Preacher's Contribution

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Today's readings have to do in one way or another with the responsibility
we have been given for each others' moral and spiritual welfare: clearly,
Ezekiel was given responsibility to help the wicked repent of their evil, and
Jesus tells us in much the same vein that we are to try to help those who do
evil mend their ways so that they might find moral and spiritual healing.

The great response of Americans to the Katrina disaster that we are now
witnessing—the huge mobilization of this country's resources, both at the
governmental and especially at the local and private levels—are typical of
the ways we react to those who have been struck by physical catastrophe.
This probably is at least partially rooted in our frontier heritage of helping
each other out in tough situations.

This wonderful commitment to come to the aid of those in physical distress,
however, stands in a certain contrast to our general lack of willingness to
help those who are in moral distress.

The scriptural imperative to help those in moral distress is a difficult
concept for us as Americans to understand: our culture teaches us what is
in many ways our cultural and political heritage—to leave people alone, to
give them their space, to let them do their own thing, to let them exercise
their freedom in whatever way they want to. We are taught, certainly, to take
responsibility for ourselves, but rarely for others. This individualism is
deeply ingrained in our culture, and hence in who we are.

But the original Christian culture was quite different: everything the early
Christians did was focused on their community with each other; after all, the
Lord said that when two or three are gathered together, there he would be.
The early Christians knew that they needed each other, not just for
companionship, but because the Lord was principally present to them in
each other, in their communities. Because of this they had strong sense of
taking responsibility for each other—and not only their material needs—but
their most deeply human moral and spiritual needs as well. So when fellow
Christians went astray, other Christians would intervene in order to help
them return to living a life of goodness. This admonition of the Lord in
today's gospel was the beginning of a tradition in the Church that has come
to be known as "fraternal correction." It means that when we see a fellow
Christian—a spouse, a sibling, a friend, an acquaintance—messing up, as
it were, hurting themselves and others by their words or attitudes or actions,
we have an obligation to point out to them the error of their ways, and by so
doing help them reform, for their good and that of others.

Yeah, Right! If we want to lose all our friends, and get slapped around a little
to boot! Yeah, Right! In an ideal world that we don't live in. One of the
problems with fraternal correction is that we often take too much pleasure in
reforming others, we actually love to criticize, we take glee in pointing out
the faults of others, too often not because of any really deep seated concern
for them, but more because of

our own insecurities,

our need to control the lives of others,

our tendency to project our faults onto others,

our penchant to bring others down so that we can pump
ourselves and our self images up.

And others know it, and are rightly offended by our attempts to help them.

And because things get so messy when we try fraternal correction, we often
give up, feeling it better to do nothing, both because of our cultural baggage
as Americans, as well as our personal baggage as sinners.

Is it then hopeless for us, as Christians, to show concern for each other's
moral struggles, and to help each other with our support and forgiveness?
Perhaps not. When we need, for their own genuine good as well as the
good of others whom they affect, to bring problems to the attention of our
spouses, or children, or siblings, or friends or members of our parish or
religious communities, what if we did so in such a way that we shared with
them similar struggles and failings that we ourselves have undergone, in
such a way that we can identify with them in their failings. Correction,
criticism for a Christian must also and always be self- correction, self-
criticism.

We must look to ourselves first, and only when we have truthfully confronted
and acknowledged our own weaknesses and failings, can we presume to
talk to others about their shortcomings, only when we can openly recognize
and acknowledge in ourselves the mistakes and weaknesses we see in
them can we identify with them in such a way that we can understand and
forgive them, even as we understand and forgive ourselves, in the act of
correcting them—and even then we must do so in fear and trembling, lest
we become like the hypocrites of the gospel.

Paradoxically, correction of each other as Christians is—or should be—one
of the most difficult tasks of our lives: But when we do it for a serious cause,
and for the right reasons, and with humble acknowledgment of our own
failings, and always with the reasonable prospect that we will do more good
than harm, it is one of the most important ones.

Because we are indeed responsible for each other.

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